For millions around the globe, yoga is the embodiment of peace, wellness, and mindful living. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry built on an image of spiritual serenity and physical health. But what if the origins of the modern yoga we practice in gyms and studios are not as pure as we believe? What if its history is entangled with Western occultism, British fascism, and a racial ideology that would feel right at home in the Third Reich?

In a fascinating episode of the Explaining History podcast, author and cultural historian Stuart Holm delves into the “murkier origins” of the global yoga phenomenon, explored in his book Fascist Yoga. He traces a hidden lineage that connects the early popularizers of yoga in the West to far-right political movements, and in doing so, sheds a crucial light on the bizarre crossover between New Age spirituality and fascist ideas that erupted into public view during the pandemic.

The 5,000-Year-Old Myth

The first uncomfortable truth is that the postural yoga practiced in the West is not an ancient, unbroken tradition stretching back millennia. As Holm notes, academic research, most notably by Mark Singleton in his groundbreaking book Yoga Body, has demonstrated that modern postural yoga is largely a 20th-century invention. It was created by Indian nationalists who blended traditional Indian philosophy with Western physical culture—including gymnastics and bodybuilding—and then rebranded it as a purely indigenous, ancient system to assert cultural superiority against the British colonizers.

But Holm’s research uncovers an even earlier, and more unsettling, origin story in the West itself. He points to figures like the American occultist Pierre Bernard, who was teaching a form of modern postural yoga in New York as early as the 1910s, years before its supposed invention in India. Bernard’s influence was profound, and his disciples were instrumental in spreading yoga throughout the English-speaking world.

The Aryan Yoga of the British Fascists

This is where the story takes a dark turn. Bernard’s most influential students were not peace-loving hippies, but men deeply embedded in the reactionary politics of the interwar period. They included Francis Yeats-Brown, a decorated officer of the British Indian Army and a committed fascist, whose bestselling book The Lives of a Bengal Lancer was a key text in popularizing a romanticized vision of the East. Another was the notorious military strategist and occultist J.F.C. Fuller, who learned his yoga not from an Indian guru, but from the infamous magician Aleister Crowley.

These men didn’t just practice yoga; they constructed a specific, racialized mythology for it. As Holm explains, they promoted the idea that yoga was the secret spiritual practice of “blond Aryan invaders” who swept into India 5,000 years ago. In this telling, the caste system was an invention of these superior Aryans to protect their sacred knowledge from the “backward” indigenous population. This narrative, a grotesque distortion of history, fit perfectly with the Aryan supremacy theories being developed by the Nazis in Germany. As Holm quotes from their writings, they saw yoga as the “true Aryan way,” diametrically opposed to the “Semitic” morality of Christianity.

This disturbing intellectual current connects to the wider world of esoteric fascism. Thinkers like the Italian traditionalist Julius Evola (who is cited in Holm’s book) and the Hitler-worshipping mystic Savitri Devi sought to create a spiritual, metaphysical justification for fascism. Devi, for instance, developed the theory of “esoteric Hitlerism,” which reimagined Hitler not as a mere political leader, but as an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, sent to cleanse the world and restore a golden age for the Aryan race.

The Wellness-to-Fascism Pipeline

While these historical connections may seem distant, Holm argues they created an ideological framework that helps explain the modern phenomenon of “conspirituality”—the Venn diagram overlap between wellness culture and conspiracy-driven extremism. During the pandemic, it was shocking to see anti-lockdown protests where, as the podcast host notes, “yoga mums” stood alongside “EDL thugs.” But the ideological seeds for this convergence were sown long ago.

Holm identifies a “wellness mindset” that can open people up to reactionary beliefs. It often begins with a blanket rejection of modern medical science in favour of “alternative medicine.” This was visible for years in anti-MMR vaccine rhetoric circulating in yoga circles, which seamlessly morphed into anti-COVID vaccine conspiracy theories.

This rejection of materialism and scientific consensus creates a vacuum that can be filled by mythic, often Manichean, worldviews. The QAnon narrative, which casts Donald Trump as a messianic figure saving the world from a cabal of “cannibalistic paedophiles,” is, as Holm points out, structurally identical to Savitri Devi’s vision of Hitler as a divine saviour. It is a spiritual battle of light against darkness, good against evil—a framework that appeals to those searching for a grander meaning in a confusing world.

People drawn into these circles often don’t see themselves as fascists. They may adopt slogans like “the left and right don’t exist anymore” while absorbing ideas from publications like The Light, a conspiracy newspaper that, as Holm mentions, features articles by “actual literal fascists.” The path from seeking personal wellness to embracing a political ideology of racial purity and authoritarianism is subtle, paved with anti-establishment rhetoric, pseudo-scientific claims, and a deep-seated distrust of mainstream institutions.

Stuart Holm’s work is a vital warning. It shows that fascism is not just jackboots and rallies; it is a fluid and adaptable ideology that can masquerade as spiritual enlightenment. It reminds us that an uncritical embrace of “ancient wisdom” and a wholesale rejection of science can lead not to nirvana, but to some of the darkest political ideologies of the modern age.

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